How to Optimize Your Website for Google Voice Search (Step-by-step Guide)

This guide covers what Google voice search is and how you can optimize your website for Google voice search.

Let me share with you a surprising fact!

About 60% searches are done on a mobile device. And this is changing the way people search.

How?

With more and more people using mobile phones to search, they often find it easier to do voice search than typing words in the search box.

Data also suggest the same.

According to the 2016 Internet Trends Report, voice search is gaining momentum rapidly.

This simply means you need to think differently about content and voice search engine optimization as the future belongs to voice search.

Before we get into the details of voice search optimization, let us first shed some light on Google Voice Search and its future.

What Is Google Voice Search?

Google Voice Search is a Google product, which enables users to do Google Search through their voice on a mobile phone or computer. Google Voice Search works like a personal virtual assistant. It will show results as you speak.

The Future of Google Voice Search

According to eMarketer, 35.6 million American are going to use a voice-activated assistant device once a month. This is around 128.9% over the last year.

What is more,

20% of Google searches on Android handsets are input by voice.

Both of the stats clearly state that the trend of voice search is growing rapidly. And you should optimize your website for voice search.

How to Optimize a Website for Voice Search

Here are a few ways that will help you optimize your website for voice search.

Think How People Speak

This is self-explanatory. Do I really have to explain it?

The time of stuffing keywords in the content to get a higher ranking is over.
Now, you need to consider the human aspect of the content.
You should think about how people speak to optimize your content for voice search.

If, for example, you need to optimize content for the keyword ‘hotels in California, you should use long tail keywords, such as:
● Price of hotels in California
● Affordable stay in California
● Cheap accommodation in California

In other words, choosing keywords that are based on a natural conversation is ideal. So, you should give focus to humanize content.

Include question phrases

To optimize your website for voice search, you need to understand what people are searching through voice search.

According to an article published on Search Engine Watch, there has been a massive growth in question phrases – 61%, in fact. And these question phrases are:
● Who
● What
● Where
● When
● How

The most commonly asked question is ‘who’.

When you are going to decide voice keywords for your website, you should put yourself in your customer’s’ shoes. Find out what questions they might be asking. If the content answers your average customer’s questions, it increases the chances of your website getting found through voice search.

Emphasize Semantics

Now, Google algorithm uses latent semantic indexing to understand the underlying meaning of search queries.

What is latent semantic indexing?

It is a mathematical method used to determine the relationship between terms and concept in content.

In other words, latent semantic indexing helps Google differentiate between Apple Inc., and apple fruit.

The whole concept of voice search depends on understanding user’s intent and delivering results.

If you use latent semantic indexing keywords along with question phrases, it boosts the chances of your content getting top rank through voice search.

Use a Great Deal of Schema Metadata

Schema is known as a markup language that site owners and webmasters use to provide search engines with additional information about the information on their site. It is like data about the data.

You can describe more comprehensively what data on your website means with the help of Schema metadata. This makes it easier for Google to understand what your web pages are about. As a result, it improves visibility.

Needless to say, during a voice search, users often want to know business’s location, price, phone number, etc. If you make this information easily available, Google can retrieve this data quickly.

Optimize Your Local Listing

People often use voice search to know things near them, meaning they are doing local searches. By optimizing your local listing, you increase the chances of getting picked up by Google in voice search.

You need to fill USPS approved address (or any other postal agency applicable to your area) in Google My Business listing.

Also, you should include important key phrases (that your target audience uses to search) in the introduction of Google My Business profile.

I have explained how to optimize Google My Business listing comprehensively in my post How to do Google Maps Marketing – A Step By Step Guide.

If you are running ad campaigns, you must optimize them for ‘near me’ searches.

Focus on Mobile

It is obvious. I don’t think I should explain it why you should have a mobile friendly website.

People often conduct voice searches on their mobile devices. This means your website must be mobile-friendly.

According to an article published on Search Engine Journal, 40 percent smartphone owners started using voice in the latter half of 2015.

So, it is imperative that you should have a mobile-friendly website if you want to get your website featured in voice search results.

I recommend you should run Google’s Mobile-Friendly test to assess where your website stands.

Also, you should make the content on your website scan-able. Write short paragraphs, use simple sentences, and use informative headers to break things up.

Improve Site Speed

It is understood that people who do voice search are on the go. They don’t have the patience to wait. Therefore, you should make sure that your site has faster speed.

How can you improve your site speed?

You should run Google’s Pagespeed Insights test. This useful tool will also suggest you ways to improve site speed.

Conclusion:

With the mobile phones getting smarter day by day, we can expect that voice search will dominate in the near future. Follow these best practices in the voice search optimization and get your website found in voice search.

Do you want to tell any voice search optimization technique? Share it in the comment section. I’d love to hear about it.